nixsight

Two reflective blog posts about (oh dear) bigotgate, that don’t entirely gel with my own thoughts, but are worth a read:

Angry Mob – “You Can’t Talk About Immigration”:

I was pretty certain that the Daily Mail runs huge amounts of stories about immigration, as does the Express, the Sun and other tabloid newspapers. These tabloids and some of the broadsheets also point out that if we reach a population of 70million because of immigration bad things will happen and life in Britain may well end. Immigration, immigration, immigration. One of the key issues of this election. Everyone is talking about it. When prospective and current PMs go on Radio 1 it is the main issue that young voters want to bring up. As far as I can perceive: everyone wants to know what is going to be done about immigration, and they are not shy to talk about it.

Yet it turns out I am badly mistaken, because of course ‘You can’t talk about immigration.’

Elmyra – “I Am An Eastern European”

At that point I completely lost it. I’m not sure I can explain how this whole sordid affair makes me feel, but let me try.

Anger. Anger at Gillian Duffy, anger at all the people who weren’t willing to stand up to her.

Shame. Shame at the realisation that I had only allowed myself to feel this anger after I had been “given permission” by the comment from the native British person who stood up for me. Blaming myself for not standing up for myself earlier, more forcefully.

A desperate need to justify myself. I pay higher-rate income tax. I contribute to the UK economy, I contribute to UK society. I probably pay into the tax system more than I get back out of it. Extending that justification to other immigrants – parts of the UK economy probably would collapse without immigrant labour; I wonder how much immigrants contribute in total to the economy; we all come here to work, and we work damn hard. A range of other economic arguments, all around contribution, all around this incredibly Tory notion of my money being the only thing that entitles me to anything like decent treatment from this society.

More anger. This time at being disempowered and disenfranchised; at being a cheap target for political point scoring because Gillian Duffy and the 60 million people like her have a vote, and I and the couple of hundred thousand people like me don’t, and therefore she will always get a grovelling apology from the Prime Minister, and we won’t.

Mili’s post is well-written and quite sad, and while I think that a lot of people over-reacted to the situation yesterday, I should state right now that I entirely understand why she, as an immigrant, and one from the same group that was mentioned so often yesterday, might feel marginalised or upset by the situation, or more accurately by the fallout. But I have to say that my experience on Twitter yesterday was, barring one particular exception, completely opposite to hers. I found there was no shortage of people attacking Duffy, or defending Gordon Brown. Actually more common in my timeline was people attacking Duffy and attacking Gordon Brown!

Personally, I think that, while people’s feelings on both sides of this furore are understandable, it’s a giant nothing story – and yes, I’m aware that it’s one that I’m adding to. Mrs Duffy’s comments weren’t particularly controversial – they edged into areas that many of us aren’t entirely comfortable with, but after a couple of decades in the UK you start to learn the difference between the casual ambient xenophobia that you get everywhere, and actual boot-heels and beatings racism. You accept that, as guided by some areas of the media, Mrs Duffy and people like her see problems around her, and blame whichever Other there happens to be around, and if it wasn’t Eastern Europeans – who she only mentions briefly as a touchstone – it would be somebody else. And if there weren’t immigrants, it would be gays, and if it wasn’t gays, it’d be teenagers.

And if there weren’t teenagers, it’d be Southerners, or the bastards down the road in Brandlesholme or Bury. Or, as seen in the awesome 3d spectacle “Clash Of The Titans”, the gods. It’s a natural human instinct and coping mechanism to place blame elsewhere.

Brown’s reaction, while superficially sounding quite harsh, is exactly the sort of reaction you’d expect to hear from anybody who, in the course of their job, found themselves having a meeting with a customer or colleague who is outspoken and one-note, who speaks over them without really saying anything, and who won’t respond to any counterpoint offered, but who they can’t speak to too directly for reasons of diplomacy. If you’ve never found yourself so frustrated by a conversation that you’ve professionally had to take part in that you felt the need to sound off when you thought you were in private later, you’ve only had the most wonderful of jobs. That the word “bigot” is getting so many Brits in a froth is embarrassing, when you consider the words most of us would tend to use about someone moments after having them essentially bellow in our face for ten minutes.

(Ok, we should be able to expect better of our Prime Minister, but it isn’t their lack of a personal opinion we’re entitled to; it’s the hope that we’d have people in charge capable of avoiding such technical wardrobe malfunctions. I think discretion is the most important thing we can expect of our government’s behaviour, and discretion isn’t the absence of bad behaviour; it’s the sense to know where and when it’s politic to indulge in it.)

My only real problem with the way Brown carried himself yesterday is that, like Mili, I was disappointed that he apologised. That he addressed the situation when asked directly is his job – I’d have expected a curt if diplomatic response, such as him stating:

“It was frustrating that during our conversation, Mrs Duffy didn’t allow any responses I gave to her concerns, and made inaccurate claims about immigration that I felt couldn’t be answered appropriately at that time. My response in private was ill-considered and born of that frustration. That that private and informal reaction was broadcast is regrettable.”

…without personalising or defining the regret. I’d think that’s as much direct personal consideration, if not more, than any one individual citizen can expect in a country with 60 million souls, and it also serves the purpose of not being interpretable as backtracking on an opinion.

But a lengthy and craven wringing of hands, complete with home-visit, was a waste of a world leader’s time, and it’s something that this country has demanded, and Gordon Brown has bent over for, far too often. I’ve come to know Brown as the Apologising PM, and I think paying this much attention to any one individual’s bruised ego is not a worthwhile use of however small a portion of my taxes go toward paying for this government.

However, I was more uncomfortable with the micro-culture-war that the situation seemed to trigger off in my Twitter Timeline. Considering Mrs Duffy’s comments were, at best, the result of a vague and directionless frustration and ignorance – that a solid proportion of the population, on any side of any argument, can be guilty of at times – and at worst a gentle background xenophobia – that again, everyone is capable of, one way or another – the anger and bile directed at her was disproportionate, and discomforting. There was some humour in some of the pastiches and digs, but most of it – culminating for me in the “bigotedwoman” Twitter account – was the comedic and commentating equivalent of sticking your tongue in your bottom lip, adopting “spastic” voice, and saying “I’M GILLIAN DUFFY AND I’M STUUUPID!”

It was bitter and hard, one-note, and more distasteful than any mild ground-level xenophobia, because – and here’s where my own middle-class inner-snob comes out a little – it was mostly coming from people who are supposed to be better educated, and think of themselves as more tolerant and little-L liberal. Apparently, racism is bad even in its mildest forms, but bigotry against stupid people is perfectly fine.

Gillian Duffy is the political spitting image of Susan Boyle – both have the defining characteristic of being entirely unexceptional, and both very slightly exceeded the super-low expectations of the dignitaries they were paraded in front of – in one case, by not having a voice that sounded like total shit, and in the other by not having the social inhibition to partake of polite discussion – and the surreal ascension of both to intense, divisive talking-point status because of the bewildered responses of  the “Important” people they brushed against is bizarre, and exposes some pretty schizophrenic glitches in British culture and society.

(For clarity: I’m not a political correspondent or a sociologist, or anything – This is just, like, an opinion, and one that’s subject to change, if argued well enough against. Like, in the comments!)